黑洞社区

Scape Group has relaunched its design arm as an architecture practice, named Lungfish.

The practice remains a subsidiary of procurement organisation Scape but will now bid for external work, rather than simply servicing clients through Scape鈥檚 public sector frameworks.

Lungfish is run by head of design Simon Reid. Reid told 黑洞社区 Scape is still the 鈥渕other ship鈥� and therefore Lungfish has to 鈥渄emonstrate that we can stand up from a commercial point of view to be part of the Scape umbrella, but also we鈥檝e now got the freedom to go out there and win our own work鈥�.

Lungfish is currently nine-strong, but has plans to expand its headcount to 15 within the next three years. It is also looking to expand outside its primary sector of education into other areas including housing.

The Nottingham-based practise recently won its largest job to date - designing the 拢18m Wixams primary and secondary academies for Bedford Borough Council.

Richard Daw, lead architect at Lungfish, is leading on the project, which went in for planning last month having achieved funding and full approval from the Education Funding Agency. The secondary school is being delivered for a total construction value of 拢10m

The school once completed will take 420 primary school and nursery pupils and 840 secondary school pupils at its technical academy, specialising in science and robotics.

It is expected that Willmott Dixon 鈥� current sole provider of Scape鈥檚 拢1bn-plus major works framework - will begin on site in July with completion due in autumn 2017, while consultant Pick Everard is project managing the scheme.

The academies in Wixams are 鈥減urely bespoke design鈥� Daw said, but the practise also provides pre-designed solutions, which Reid said is the firm鈥檚 鈥渂read and butter鈥� and can provide clients with a cost effective, fast track route, or the firm can provide a hybrid of bespoke and pre-designed.

Lungfish also has two schemes underway with Scotland鈥檚 fire and rescue service, including a new fire and rescue station in Stornoway, which is being delivered by transport ferry this year.